“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
We have all experienced the slow wait for life to return to normal. Are you there yet? Will we have another disruption with life?
We’ve probably all experienced a strain, tension, out-right explosions in relationships. Is it at work, in your family, with a neighbor or a close friend? The restored sense of rightness has been slow in coming, in fact you can’t see the way to recovery yet.
Maybe it’s a renovation that has had more delays than starts. Or an exercise commitment that hasn’t shown the expected results…yet.
Our family experienced a major heartbreaking disruption several years ago and tension has existed since. Each of us are in a different stage of recovery. It has been slow and will be. But my husband and I have come to a place where all we know to do is love anyway.
The Space Between Us by Sarah Bauer Anderson tells this Jewish tradition. When God created us, he put a rope between his heart and ours. When humans chose their own way, the rope was severed. But God (don’t you love those words) didn’t want to remain with the untethered rope between us. So he picked up the ends of the rope and tied them back together. And has been doing so with every broken choice we have made. Ironically, when God ties the rope together again and again, it shortens the distance between us.
Surely this idea can apply to us in the places our ropes are severed with each other. Does the end of the rope – or thread – you hold in your hand need to be tied again? What keeps you and me from taking a simple first step towards a retie?
Believing God’s promises is hard when the asking isn’t getting an answer. Believing God’s will is for brokenness to be redeemed, rescued, renovated is believing and living His Kingdom come, His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. He is not slow in keeping his promise that all come into His rescue, that all of us find grace, hope, and forgiveness. He is at work.